Barbara Metzger (3 page)
Authors: Lord Heartless
The butler sneered and stood his ground, looking from Hartleigh's scuffed boots to his bedraggled neckcloth.
"Want I should darken his daylights, Cap'n?” Byrd asked.
"That will not be necessary, gentlemen. What seems to be the problem, Mason?"
They all looked toward the stairs, where an elderly, silver-haired gentleman was descending on the arm of a young footman. Lesley had been introduced to the wealthy cit, now a knight, on a few occasions at Carlton House, so before the butler could open his mouth, Lesley bowed. “Forgive the disturbance, Sir Gilliam, but we have a bit of an emergency,” he understated.
"More like a calamity,” Byrd was muttering from behind him, as Sir Gilliam made his slow way across the entry hall.
Sir Gilliam adjusted his spectacles and surveyed his callers. “Yes, I can see that you do, my lord.” The old man's eyes widened at the sight of the basket which now rested near the viscount's foot. “Indeed.” He coughed, and took a moment to catch his breath. “How may I, ah, be of assistance?"
"It's your housekeeper I've come to ask for help, actually. I was hoping she might be of temporary aid, until I can make other arrangements, of course. Your Mrs., uh—Kane, is it?—seemed the likeliest, nearest source of advice in this quandary."
"Yes, Mrs. Kane is quite the most competent female and an excellent mother. I am sure she will be happy to render what service she can.” He coughed again. “Mason, why don't you show his lordship to Mrs. Kane's sitting room?” His nose twitched. “Pardon me if I do not invite you gentlemen to share my breakfast parlor."
Mason turned his back and stalked out of the entry, down the central corridor, his rigid spine bespeaking silent reproof. Lesley shrugged and, with another bow toward his host, gathered up the straw basket and followed. Mason showed them into a neat parlor at the rear of the house, jerked his head in barest obeisance, and left.
They waited, and waited. “The gent didn't tell that Mason fellow to fetch the woman, only to show us here,” Byrd said, unnecessarily, in Lesley's opinion.
The viscount had been pacing the tiny room, checking his watch against the plain wooden clock on the mantel. Other than the timepiece, the shelf was bare except for a small vase of flowers and a miniature of a man in uniform. He felt like an intruder. “I know that, you clunch. And the cur must have known she'd be about her duties somewhere. We'll just have to find her."
"Like as not, they know where she is—in the kitchen. Told you we should of used the service entrance."
Lesley gritted his teeth and followed another uppity servant—this one his own—down another well-lighted, well-maintained corridor.
Mrs. Carissa Kane was indeed in the kitchen, fixing Sir Gilliam's breakfast plate just the way he liked it: two eggs, two slices of toast, two rashers of bacon. He wouldn't eat more; she wouldn't offer him less. Carissa also made sure her employer's favorite jam was on the tray, and some fresh butter, with a rose stamped into each pat.
While she waited for the bell from Mason to indicate that Sir Gilliam was seated, with his coffee and his newspaper, Mrs. Kane arranged some tulips from the front border garden into a jasperware vase. She kept glancing over to the corner of the kitchen, where her daughter, Philippa, was eating her porridge. The four-year-old sat with her bare feet tucked under her stool, carefully out of the way of Cook, who was kneading dough for the tea cakes, and Bonnie, the maid, who was cleaning the already spotless kitchen.
"If you are very good this morning, Pippa,” Mrs. Kane told the brown-haired child, “perhaps Cook will make an extra raspberry tart. Should you like that?"
The little girl nodded solemnly and kept spooning up her breakfast.
Cook smiled and said, “Our Pippa is always an angel, isn't that the Lord's own—Oh, my stars and Scriptures!” She dropped the bowl she was holding with a clatter, the spoon falling to the floor. Bonnie shrieked and raised her apron over her head. Pippa kept eating her porridge.
Frowning, Carissa looked toward the doorway, where everyone's eyes seemed to be fixed, and she almost dropped the expensive vase. “Good heavens,” she whispered. There in the entry of her orderly kitchen, a place where even Mason seldom intruded, stood two of the most disreputable characters she could imagine. Carissa couldn't decide if she ought to grab up her daughter and run, or reach for Cook's meat cleaver to defend them all. What such brigands were doing invading Sir Gilliam's quiet kitchen she could not imagine, but there they were, bigger than life.
The younger, shorter of the men, the one wearing the remains of a fashionable ensemble, with the remains of his breakfast, bowed slightly and stepped farther into the room. “Mrs. Kane?"
Now Carissa recognized the callers—and they were still her worst nightmares, both of them, the pirate and the profligate peer. The gentleman, and she used the term loosely, was the rake who staggered home nearly every morning in his evening clothes. He lived in that derelict house across the street, although he definitely belonged across town with the other pleasure-seeking patricians.
Bonnie and Cook had speculated endlessly as to why such a well-born, well-heeled toff would choose to reside in Kensington when he had a perfectly splendid mansion in Mayfair. They had also made sure Carissa knew that he was Lesley Hammond, Lord Hartleigh, the viscount the
on dits
columns labeled Lord Heartless. They dubbed him thus, Carissa was given to understand, not because he was unkind, but because he was unattainable. London's premier matrimonial prize wasn't brutal; he'd just left a broad swath of bruised hearts behind him. He hadn't yet succumbed to the beau monde's beauties or the demimonde's dashers.
Nary a woman in all his four-and-thirty years had held his affection for more than a brief—albeit joyful, by repute—affair. Lord Heartless was as fickle as a flea, and as hard to catch. The women were the ones who were left heartsore and sad, which never stopped a single ninnyhammer from vying for his attention, to Cook's glee and Carissa's disgust.
"I am Hartleigh, ma'am,” he was saying now, as if there were a female in all of London unaware of his name, “and Sir Gilliam gave me leave to ask your assistance with a small difficulty."
Lord Hartleigh's oversized companion cleared his throat and stepped forward. “Byrd, ma'am. Aloysius Byrd, at your service.” He doffed his cap, revealing a distorted ear and a pate as bald as the eggshells from Sir Gilliam's breakfast, except for the seagull tattooed there. And then he smiled, showing two gold teeth. Bonnie shrieked and fled into the pantry. Carissa wished she could do the same. She glanced to make sure Pippa wasn't frightened, but the child was staring from one of the visitors to the other, brown eyes wide in her little face, with her porridge forgotten.
"Pippa, eat your breakfast before it gets cold,” Carissa said, trying to maintain some shreds of control in this bizarre situation. Cook's mouth was hanging open, so she was going to be no help. Carissa ignored the brawny buccaneer and turned her attention back to his lordship. He looked like something her cat would be too fastidious to drag in, so she asked, “A difficulty, you say? Has there been a carriage accident? I'm not surprised, the way you dr—” She recalled her manners and didn't even reprimand him for springing his horses on the narrow street where children were wont to play. Not her child, of course. “Ah, that is, perhaps you should call for a physician?"
"No, there has not been a carriage accident,” Lesley said through clenched teeth. Damn if the starched-up crone wasn't itching to treat him to another reproach about the decadent aristocracy. He could see she was thinking it, the way her arms were crossed and her brow was lowered over dark eyes. Thunderation, all he wanted was to rest his aching head on something soft. Lud knew there was nothing soft about Mrs. Kane. Still, he had no choice but to lay his burden, and his basket, at her feet. “This arrived on my doorstep a short while ago."
Carissa was not about to touch such a noisome object. Wrinkling her nose, she waited for him to continue. Instead, he peeled back the covers. “Why, it's a baby!” she exclaimed.
"Why does everyone think I cannot recognize an infant?” Lesley muttered. “Yes, ma'am, it is a baby, and I have no idea what to do with it or for it. I was hoping you could come across the street and help."
"Lord have mercy, who'd have mistaken your love nest for the foundling hospital?” Cook had found her voice.
The viscount frowned, but addressed his answer to the housekeeper. “A, ah, friend had to travel suddenly."
"And left her baby?” Carissa was incredulous. “With you?” She was kneeling down to examine the sleeping babe when the service bell rang. “Oh, dear. Sir Gilliam is ready for his breakfast."
Cook made a rude noise. “Ain't that just like Mason, when he knows you're in the middle of a hobble. The little runt could have fetched the tray hisself, for once."
Carissa stood and raised the tray, shaking her head when Byrd, filthy hands and all, would have taken it from her. “I'll just be a minute, and the child seems to be sleeping for now. Pippa, do not feed the cat the rest of your porridge.” She disappeared through the door, but Lesley wasn't about to let his unlikely angel out of his sight, now that he'd found her. He hefted the basket and followed, with Byrd on his heels.
Sir Gilliam raised his brows when the threesome entered his morning room. “Thank you, my dear,” he said when Carissa placed his plate before him and arranged the flowers in the center of the table. “Do you think you'll be able to assist his lordship with this, ah, small problem he seems to have?"
"Yes, sir—that is, if it is all right with you, Sir Gilliam."
He waved her off with one gnarled hand. “Go on, go on with you. Take all the time you need. The linen closets and laundry can wait. His lordship cannot, by the looks of him. Just make sure you are back by supper,” he said with a smile, “to tell me all about it."
"And you'll take Cook's posset when I'm gone, and remember to wear your scarf when you go out?"
"Yes, yes, my dear. Don't fuss. I'll be fine."
Carissa looked at him uncertainly, then at the basket the ragtag viscount was dangling from one hand. She nodded, curtsied to her employer, and took the hamper away from Lord Hartleigh. “Follow me, my lord. I'll gather whatever I can think of for now, perhaps some sheets if you have nothing better."
She collected some clean bottles and soft towels into a market basket, along with the fresh bread the men were eyeing, meanwhile giving instructions to Cook and the maid. She handed Philippa's shoes to the viscount. “Someone help her with the buttons while I go fetch the sheets, then we'll be ready."
Lesley looked at the small boots in his hand, then at the small child. He looked at the cook, who was up to her elbows in dough. She winked at him. The maid was washing pots in the sink, too bashful to meet his eyes. He turned to Byrd, who grinned. “You're the one in the petticoat line, Cap'n."
Groaning, Lesley lowered himself to the floor near the stool. A small finger reached out to touch the unshaven stubble on his chin. The chit's nose wrinkled in exact imitation of her mother, then she nodded and put her thumb in her mouth, staring at the viscount. When he finished, the laces every which way, the bows in knots, Lesley wiped the sweat off his brow.
The thumb came out of the moppet's mouth only long enough for her to inform the viscount, “I could make mice feet myself."
He was saved having to answer by the reappearance of Mrs. Kane. She had her cloak, and one for the little girl. “Ah, it might be better to leave the br—uh, child here. One of the servants could watch her."
Carissa glared at the viscount, as out of place in her kitchen as she would be at Almack's. “My lord, I
am
one of the servants."
No apologies, no excuses. Lords did not explain their actions to the lower orders, yet Lesley's unsettled stomach was churning as he led the silent little band across the street. The difference between Sir Gilliam's tidy property and his own dilapidated domicile was glaring by the light of day, even to his bloodshot eyes. There was, in fact, no explanation that he could have given. Instead, he warned Mrs. Kane, who clutched the baby's basket in one hand, her daughter's wrist in the other, to beware of the holes.
"I am well acquainted with these holes, my lord,” she told him, picking her way across the erstwhile lawn. “We have similar ones at Sir Gilliam's, where my azalea used to be, where the rosebush once stood, where I tried to plant an herb garden, where—"
"Yes, well, here we are then.” Lesley coughed and pushed open the front door. He tried to make light of the chaos within. “It's not what you're used to, I'm sure. Bachelor digs, don't you know."
He could see her looking around for a clean place to set down the baby, so he swept his arm across the hall table, sending bottles and dishes, racing forms and a painted fan, to the floor. Thank heaven, he thought, she hadn't glimpsed the risqué painting on the fan. The widow's nose was already twitching so fast she was in danger of turning into a squirrel. “There is an unused bedroom abovestairs. That should be in order."
Carissa pursed her lips. “First the kitchen, I think."
Well, they hardly used the place, Lesley reflected, so how bad could it be? Mrs. Kane's gasp told him. “The, ah, staff left precipitously.” So much for no excuses. “I haven't had a chance to replace them."
In two years, by the looks of things. Carissa was horrified, itching to take Pippa and the baby back across the street. But she could never bring the infant to Sir Gilliam's, she knew, even if the poor scrap didn't belong to the viscount. Mason gave her enough trouble over Pippa as it was. The martinet would stir up such a dust if she brought the baby back that Sir Gilliam would be disturbed, which she would not do, not even for an innocent tyke. Lord Hartleigh would just have to put this place in order, unless...
"You are not below hatches, are you, my lord?” Perhaps that would explain why such a nonpareil was living in Kensington. No rumors of his pecuniary embarrassment had come Cook's way, however, or Carissa would have been bound to hear. “You know, punting on tick, I believe it is called."
